In the Cloud Service management interface, as a service provider you generate new backup archives of all the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliances in the cloud site. Download the backup archive as a file and then preserve it on an external storage device for future restore of the cloud site to that moment in time.

You generate a backup of all the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliances in the cloud site only by using the management interface of the Cloud Service. This backup archive contains the following information from each appliance in the cloud site:

  • Configuration files
  • Public certificate
  • Keystore
  • Database dump
In the backup archive, this information is stored as multiple .enc appliance backup files. When generating the backup, you provide a password that encrypts the .enc appliance backup files to preserve any sensitive information.

A backup file does not contain:

  • The appliance root user password.
  • Any previous backup archives.
  • Any support bundles.
  • The NTP time server configuration.
  • Enable SSH state.
  • The network configuration provided in the OVF wizard during appliance deployment.
  • Static routes configured on appliances with multiple network interface cards (NICs).
Locally, the appliances can store up to 24 backup archives on their internal storage. Past that number, you must delete some of them, or attempting to create another backup, shows Backup quota exceeded. Number of allowed backups: 24, current backup count: 24. Such limit does not apply for the Scheduled backup archives that are stored on an external SFTP storage. For more information, see Schedule backup archives.
Note: After evacuating a datastore, all backups taken priorly cannot restore the replications. For information about datastore evacuation, see Evacuate the replications data from a datastore.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that before taking a backup, all VMware Cloud Director Availability services are operational. As exception, unreachable Replicator Service instances without incoming replications do not prevent generating a backup.
  • Verify that the free disk space value in the bottom of the System health page shows at least the following amount of free space for each of the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliances in the cloud site:
    • Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance 40%
    • Each Replicator Appliance instance 35%
    • Tunnel Appliance 35%

Procedure

  1. Log in to the management interface of the Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance.
    1. In a Web browser, go to https://Appliance-IP-Address/ui/admin.
    2. Select Appliance login or SSO login and enter the root or the single sign-on user credentials.
    3. Click Login.
  2. In the left pane under the System section, click Backup Archives.
  3. In the top right corner next to Scheduled backup archives, click Manual backup archives.
  4. On the Manual backup archives page, to generate a backup archive click Generate new.
  5. In the Generate a new backup archive window, generate the backup archive of the cloud site.
    1. In the Password text box, enter a password that protects and encrypts the backup archive contents.
      The password that you enter must contain a minimum of eight characters and must consist of:
      • At least one lowercase letter.
      • At least one uppercase letter.
      • At least one number.
      • At least one special character, such as & # % .
    2. In the Confirm Password text box, reenter the password to confirm the password that encrypts the backup.
      Note: Store the backup password in a safe place since it cannot be restored later.
    3. To generate the backup archive, click Generate.
    In the Backup archives page, you can see the progress of generating the new backup archive.
  6. To locally download a generated backup archive, in the Backup Id column click the backup id link.
    1. In the Download Backup Archive window, to save the backup file locally click Download.
      In your Web browser, the archive cloud-backup-product.version.build-site_name-date-timestampUTC.tar.bz2 file starts downloading.
    2. Store the locally downloaded backup archive and its password for future restore of the cloud site to that moment in time.
    The backup archive cloud-backup-product.version.build-site_name-date-timestampUTC.tar.bz2 file downloaded, providing a locally-stored backup point in time of the site.
  7. (Optional) Remove a backup archive from the appliance.
    1. Select one or more generated backup archives for removal and click Delete.
    2. In the Remove Archives window, to confirm the removal click Delete.
      You deleted the selected backup archives from the appliance. For restoring, use a locally downloaded backup archive.

What to do next

You can later use a downloaded backup archive to restore all the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliances in the cloud site to that moment in time. For information about restoring from a backup archive, see Restore the appliances in the cloud.